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Monday, May 22, 2006
Wonkitties: Say it ain't so!
Um, I've described Toronto Star columnist Rondi Adamson as one of the best columnists in Canada -- or words to that effect.
But . . .
In her column published in The Red Star, here, Rondi raises the spectre of a carbon tax as well as incentives for green energy.
Ugh.
Er, in those immortal words of my second-most-favourite-American philosopher, Linus, when he's finally had enough: AARGH!
I'm willing to concede incentives for so-called green fuels which all too often are more harmful than high-efficiency use of petroleum. This was the option the federal Minister of Environment espoused on Sunday's CTV Question Period with Jane Taber.
But carbon tax?
CARBON TAX?
CARBON TAX?!
Say it ain't so, Rondi.
I say, fire up coal-fed electricity generating plants across Ontario -- or Canada, for that matter -- like the one near the north shore of Lake Erie. They're efficient, deliver low emissions, they're cheaper than nuclear to start up and power down -- let alone build or dismantle, and Canada has mountains of cheap coal. Leave natural gas for heating homes.
And leave off a carbon tax!
I say again, with Linus and with conviction: AARGH!
Posted by Russ Kuykendall on May 22, 2006 in Media | Permalink
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Comments
Only a communist would think the energy market didn't already have enough built in incentive.
Why do we have to read shiite from easterners on the western standard shotgun blog?
Posted by: Speller | 2006-05-22 10:02:09 PM
Frickin A bubba!
Put a 50% provincial carbon tax on at the pumps and on home heating.
Lets start in Ontario.
Come on.
Talk the talk.
Walk the frickin walk!
Posted by: Douglas | 2006-05-23 12:05:51 AM
Interesting how Rona is calling bullshit on this big game of bluster.
Now that Canada has stood up, watch the whole thing fall apart like (appropriate cliche here).
You go, Rona, go.
Piss of the Chosen People in Toronto.
Where else can you buy such cheap entertainment watching the old spider web falling apart?
Once the web of decit falls, the bloodsucking spiders will have nothing left to live on ... the freakin' parasites.
Posted by: Set you free | 2006-05-23 1:32:33 AM
We gave and contiue to give very generous incentives for non-conventional tarsands-based crude development by having a very low initial royalty and other revenue-based incentives. And it has worked wonderfully.
Offering the same kinds of incentives for greener technology seems the way to go. Taxing consumption or production of fossil fuels shoots our economy in the foot or perhaps in a more vital area.
Politically it is suicide - Alberta becomes a nation if the tax is on production, if it is a tax at the point of consumption, the party responsible would be reduced to single digits in the next election .
Ms. Adamson has been hanging around theyorkville area too much.
Posted by: Gord Tulk | 2006-05-23 7:34:59 AM
Is it just me or is Toronto - the home of such mind-numbing, sucking maws as York University and the Toronto Star - really just a cesspool toxifying the rest of the country? Really, Alberta should seriously consider separation because it will only continue to be disparaged and targeted by T.O. wackos, feminists and moral narcissists.
Posted by: blaine | 2006-05-23 9:26:28 AM
There's a carbon tax every time you fill up your car. When you tax gasoline at the pump, you're taxing carbon. Gas has been taxed for a long time. It's not NEP II nor a threat to Alberta.
I'd rather they use incentives for R&D into technology if you have to do anything as it would be a hell of a lot more effective.
But taxing gas at the pump isn't going to destroy Alberta. It's paranoid idiocy to think that a government with its base in Calgary is going to screw over Alberta. Of course, that won't stop the usual drooling idiots from pretending that the world is about to end.
Posted by: Warwick | 2006-05-23 9:51:00 AM
blaine:
Congratulations on your escape from the blindness of ignorance puretrated by Those Who Must Be Obeyed in the fine city of Toronto.
Allan Fotheringham suggested a long time ago that Canada's problems would be solved if the rest of the country could somehow force Toronto to separate from us.
At least it would save us from the constant blah, blah, blah of a populace who believes the sheer numbers of its population instill a right to impose its brand of wisdom on the outlying colonies in the west ... while continuing to fight the battle on the Plains of Abrahan on its eastern flank.
Paul Wells in this week's MacLeans floats an interesting theory. For 30 years, the NDP maintained the position that Quebec was somehow ‘special' and that its populace was inherently attracted to its message.
Using this strategy, it elected one MP in the past 30 years.
Wells compares this to the Conservative position. They did not pretend to understand Quebec, but figured the concerns of the average Jean in Chicoutimi were no different than the average Joe in Lethbridge.
The result ... what was it ... 10 seats without even trying.
Wells has shown unusual insight for a Toronto-based writer, whose group tend to run with the pack and where independent thinking is perceived as a threat to the group.
Just go up the road a bit to Ottawa. Listen and read all the Ottawa press gallery has to say or write. All sounds pretty much the same, don't you think?
The pressing question is ... does that mean the Ottawa press gallery all arrived at the truth at the same time ... or is it that they are too lazy to break away from the pack or too incompetent to forumlate their own opinions?
Just wondering.
Posted by: Set you free | 2006-05-23 10:01:47 AM
karol:
The same way a pig listens to a thunderstorm.
Brilliant!
I was driving home from the bar at about 2:30 a.m. on Saturday and heard on the radio how technological solutions to the so-called energy crisis is so advanced, it's amazing what it can do.
For example Japanese scientists have devised a way to change molecular structure of basic elements. They have not successfully been able to make gold, a dream of the alchemists in days yore.
Trouble is, the production of this gold is $32,000 and ounce.
Yet, the guy said, in theory this could be a solution to the fears of nuclear power.
One of the problems with nuclear power now is what to do with the spend rods. Anybody who acutally knows anything about this is quite welcome to interrupt at any time.
The spent rods can somehow be molecularily rearranged to help extend the life of the rods and in the end another process would render them much more inert than they are now.
What this has to do with an Ontario-syle Parkinson's Disease, I have no clue, which is pretty consistent with my record here.
We'll continue to fumble around in the dark for a while. This one segment was just a small part of revealing a leading-edge world of science which opens up some fascinating possibilities.
Posted by: Set you free | 2006-05-23 10:14:20 AM
I never could understand the big deal about spent nuclear fuel rods. Pick any unused piece of crappy land. Cast the rods into nice square concrete blocks. Stack them up neatly, and throw a tall chain-link fence around them with a danger sign like any transformer station or other dangerous place has. All the spent fuel rods ever created in Canada would use less than an acre.
We deal with dangerous goods and poisonous substances all the time. No Big Deal! As long as you don't sleep with the stuff, or eat it, it won't hurt anybody.
Ever seen the tremendous ash piles produced by burning coal?
Don't be afraid. Just deal with it.
Posted by: Mad Mike | 2006-05-24 3:07:52 PM
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